2005 in British television

This is a list of British television-related events in 2005.

Events

*January 5—"Desperate Housewives makes it's initial UK debut with an impressive 5 million viewers. These are the highest figures Channel 4 has had since the debut night of The Simpsons on November 5 2004
*January 8—Jerry Springer - The Opera airs on BBC Two, despite protests from Christian Voice and other groups.
*February 8—Teachers' TV, run by the Department for Education and Skills, launches on Sky Digital (channel 686) and Freeview.
*February 19—"EastEnders" celebrates its twentieth anniversary on the air, airing a special episode in which Dirty Den Watts is killed by his new wife Chrissie. 14.34 million watch, the UK's second highest rated programme of 2005 (the first was an episode of "Coronation Street" three days later).
*February 23—UKTV Style Gardens, a channel dedicated to gardening programmes, launches.
*February 26—Sound TV, known pre-launch as "The Great British Television Channel", launches on Sky Digital (588). It closed in the Autumn.
*March 26—Nine years after its last new episode and sixteen years since its last regular run, "Doctor Who" returns to BBC One for a new series, the twenty-seventh in total since 1963. Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper star. An average 10.81 million viewers, over 40% of the watching audience, tune in, winning its timeslot and making it No. 3 BBC show and No. 7 across all channels for the week. The episode went on to become the UK's 6th highest rated programme of 2005.
*March 30—As a test trial, the small Welsh towns of Ferryside and Llansteffan have their analogue television signals switched off. The trial proved a success and the digital switchover fully began two and a half years later in Cumbria.
*April 2—Digital channel BBC Four broadcasts a live re-make of the famous 1953 science-fiction drama "The Quatermass Experiment". The production is the first live drama broadcast by the BBC for over twenty years, and draws BBC Four's second highest audience to date, with an average of 482,000 viewers.
*April 8—12.9 million viewers watched Ken Barlow tie the knot with Deirdre Rachid on "Coronation Street", one day before Prince Charles's wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles (8.7 million viewers watched). The scheduling move echoed Ken and Deirdre's first marriage, which occurred two days before Charles's nuptials to Diana, Princess of Wales, and which also beat the Royal wedding in the television ratings (see 1981 in television).
*May 16—BBC Weather relaunches, changing from 2D to 3D graphics.
*June 18—Christopher Eccleston's final episode of the Ninth Doctor in "Doctor Who", 'The Parting of the Ways', is broadcast on BBC One. David Tennant becomes the Tenth Doctor in the same episode.
*June 25—"The Girl in the Café", a comedy-drama by Richard Curtis made as part of the global Make Poverty History campaign, is shown by both BBC One in the United Kingdom and HBO in the United States on the same day.
*July 17—After forty-one years broadcasting on BBC One, music show "Top of the Pops" is switched to the less mainstream BBC Two channel due to declining audiences. This is not enough to save it, and it is axed the following year.
*September 8—Faze TV, a British digital channel aimed at gay men, cancels its launch after failing to secure sufficient funding to deliver "sufficient quality." [http://www.media247.co.uk/skydigital/news.php]
*September 26 & 27—"No Direction Home", Martin Scorsese's documentary on Bob Dylan, receives its broadcast premiere on BBC Two in the UK, under the "Arena" banner.
*September—ITV celebrates its 50th anniversary with a collection of special programmes, under the name "ITV50".
*October 10—More4, a digital channel from Channel 4 offering factual content, launches.
*October 24—Sky News moves to new studios, with a new schedule and on-air look.
*October 25—The relaunched "Doctor Who" is the major winner at the annual National Television Awards in the UK, taking the Most Popular Drama award, with its stars Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper winning Most Popular Actor and Most Popular actress.
*October 27-December 16—"Bleak House", a 15-episode adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel of the same name designed to capture a soap opera-style audience by using Dickens's original serial structure in half-hour episodes, is broadcast on BBC One.
*October 31—Sky3 is launched on British digital terrestrial and satellite platforms. On the same day Sky Mix is rebranded as Sky Two, and Sky Travel ceases transmission on Freeview.
*November 1—ITV4, a digital channel aimed at men, is launched in the UK. It is launched on Sky Digital Channel 120 on November 7.
*November 7-November 28—BBC One broadcasts "ShakespeaRe-Told", a series of four adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays based in 21st century Britain. The plays in order are Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
*November 18—BBC One broadcasts this years annual Children in Need appeal. It contained several highlights including Catherine Tate in EastEnders, the BBC Newsreaders performing Bohemian Rhapsody, and a brand new Doctor Who adventure. The first to fully star David Tennant as the Doctor, the 7 minute episode directly follows on from The Parting of the Ways and directly leads on to The Christmas Invasion.
*December 7-December 16—"Space Cadets" is shown on Channel 4, a hoax reality TV show where the contestants believe they are in a space shuttle orbiting Earth, when in fact they are in a set in a disused aircraft hangar in Suffolk.
*December 15—Sir Trevor McDonald makes his final ITN news broadcast after over 25 years. As a tribute, the closing theme tune for the News at Ten Thirty that night is replaced with the News at Ten theme used from 1992 to 1999, McDonald having presented the show during that time.
*December 23—ITV News Channel closed. [http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=318353]
*December 25—BBC One airs the "Doctor Who" Christmas Special, "The Christmas Invasion"

Debuts

ITV1

*September 24—"Afterlife" premieres. However, despite being a British series, it had actually received its world premiere some weeks earlier on Australia's Nine Network (2005–present).

Channel 4

*October 31—The UK version of "Deal or No Deal" premieres, relaunching the career of Noel Edmonds and bringing the channel a surprise daytime hit (2005–present).

Five

*August 8—"Roobarb and Custard Too" premieres (2005–present).

Returning this year from a break of One Year Or Longer